"The "shut up and build things" position embodies the tacit assumption that the world naturally pushes itself to an equillibrium that is fair and just."
It does not. It embodies the tacit assumption that some people prefer to spend their time building something tangible rather than devoting their lives tilting at the windmills of eradicating racism, sexism, and all the other bigotries endemic to our society.
Tilting at those windmills is important, and might be a cause worthy of devoting your life to it, but it's not everyone's calling.
Lastly, the author of the original article is arguably doing more to advance the cause of women in technology by participating in and engaging with the community, than many of the people writing articles and complaining about the problems.
> Tilting at those windmills is important, and might be a cause worthy of devoting your life to it, but it's not everyone's calling.
"Tilting at windmills" means attacking imaginary enemies, you really can't have it both ways of calling work on eradicating racism, sexism, and other bigotries "Tilting at windmills" and then say it's important.
Further, eradicating racism, sexism, etc.. IS EVERYONE'S CALLING. If you don't hear the call, you're part of the problem, PERIOD.
You propose a world where a handful of us don't get to participate in society because all we have time to do is to yell at you about being a dummkopf.
Your comment is fascinating because it is a glaring example of what another commenter described "you are either with or against us" attitude that the extrimist parts of any movement show. I understood the person you responded to to see your cause as a good one and thus be on your side. If you attack anyone who doesn't want to go on a crusade you will never achieve what you set out to and will in fact drive people off. Not to mention that you will be very frustrated.
I don't think it's an attack, just the observation that indifference and inaction supports the status quo. It's not "against us" in an active sense, but it is in a passive sense; it's not pure neutrality, as many posters here seem to think. It's sort of like walking past an elderly person who has fallen because you don't want to interrupt your game.
I respectfully disagree. Those who claim "if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem," are fallaciously dividing the field into just two factions.
In reality, there are those part of your preferred solution, those who actively oppose your solution, those who are content with the situation as it stands, and those who may prefer different solutions, or perceive the problem from a different perspective.
What you propose is a world where people are constantly being accused of stupidity and insulted simply because they hold different opinions than their accusers.
I am not responsible for the whole of human behavior. I am only responsible for myself. If I, myself, make a token effort to neither exhibit bigoted behaviors nor teach them to those under my influence, is that not enough? What if one of my personal values is that other people are entitled to their own opinions, even if they are incompatible with my own?
A few of my in-laws and distant cousins are extremely racist, but it is not my job to "fix" them. Nor could I. Their minds are closed tightly. And they too tend to think that "if you are not part of my solution, you are part of my problem."
If you spend so much of your time screaming that other people are doing it all wrong that you have no time to do anything yourself, then who is the dumb-head?
"Further, eradicating racism, sexism, etc.. IS EVERYONE'S CALLING. If you don't hear the call, you're part of the problem, PERIOD."
I guarantee that if I knew you and how you spend your time, I could quickly point out endemic, crucially important problems with a clear moral imperative, that you are contributing very little, if anything, to solving.
I think this was a fine comment until you decided to call people (and, by pretty direct implication, the commenter you replied to) "part of the problem". I'm closer to your side of this debate than 'jimbokuns and I winced when I read this.
Further, eradicating racism, sexism, etc.. IS EVERYONE'S CALLING.
I've got a friend who is very white and very male and very straight, and honestly, it's worked out pretty well for him.
What is his incentive for abolishing racism, sexism, etc.? That incentive is certainly not outweighed by what he gives up.
Your argument (such as it is) is as foolish and baseless as his is practical and repugnant.
EDIT:
Downvotes as expected. Look, the only progress to be made is to show those folks that there is really a better outcome if they are more egalitarian.
The current guilt-based argumentation doesn't work, because it alienates the people who are actually trying to do the right thing and utterly fails to register for people like my friend who would agree with the points of privilege and proceed to exercise them to their fullest.
If you stock a team of people attacking a problem with people who fit one precise mold, you'll miss out on the breadth of problems that people from other backgrounds face. More importantly, you'll miss out on their solutions to those problems. You're trading global progress for a blip of personal comfort extracted at a high cost from more vulnerable people.
Seriously in the most crass cynical context imaginable, diverse teams should be expected to outperform homogenous ones. For some HN-relatable examples to this 101-level topic, see TNG: The Masterpiece Society, DS9: Melora, or Bill Burr's "Ashy" bit.
Does that explain the "incentive" to not be a bigoted shithead devoid of empathy?
If you stock a team of people attacking a problem with people who fit one precise mold, you'll miss out on the breadth of problems that people from other backgrounds face.
If I'm building an algorithm for packing bytes into an array, inverting matrices, or some similarly technological issue, why would insights into police profiling or sexual harassment be useful?
Seriously in the most crass cynical context imaginable, diverse teams should be expected to outperform homogenous ones.
I note that two of your examples are from science fiction television, and the third is a (good) comedy routine.
I don't disagree with the spirit of the common-sense "should" in your sentence. I do question--because Lord knows we'd all be better off with concrete numbers so we can put this to bed and win a decisive victory for diversity--whether or not this diversity actually results in better outcomes reliably.
You're trading global progress for a blip of personal comfort extracted at a high cost from more vulnerable people.
Well, yes...that's pretty much the definition of capitalism as currently implemented: running arbitrage on scarcity of material or knowledge so as to enrich oneself and one's stakeholders.
~
Again, I'm all for diversity and these things. I'm just pointing out that these arguments would benefit from much more intellectual and practical rigor than many seem to possess.
If I'm building an algorithm for packing bytes into an array, inverting matrices, or some similarly technological issue, why would insights into police profiling or sexual harassment be useful?
Because most software that actually gets used on a day-to-day basis doesn't purely work on theoretical constructs, for one: even if your application just needs really basic things like names [1] or addresses [2], it will implicitly make at least some assumptions about users, which a diverse team is much better equipped to check and correct.
Yeah, I wasn't sure how to address this one. In addition to most software not existing inside a pure abstract context, things like using 3 random points to determine the quick sort pivot just sat there undiscovered for a few decades. Since hypothesis-generation is the big undefined area, it would seem that diverse backgrounds would necessarily help. Plus we're implicitly assuming that diverse backgrounds lead to sub-par work in the pure theory domain, which is kinda shitty on its own.
And I think the parallels between a solid understanding of police "kettling" as they would apply to distributed systems and/or queueing are fairly clear. But I wouldn't expect someone who thinks inverting a matrix is tricky to appreciate either.
You didn't start out asking for "much more intellectual and practical rigor than many seem to possess." You started out with a broad assertion that there was no possibility of anything existing in this "incentive space" for a straight, white man to do anything but kick minorities to the curb and languish on unearned privilege. I firmly believe that something like "Ashy" is undeniable explanatory of the incentives around it for someone aggressively invested in maintaining their own privilege.
As charming as it is to see you sprint down the field with those goalposts in tow if you honestly thought your first reply warranted intellectualism instead of bro-pandering you're deluding yourself. Do yourself a favor and plug "diverse teams perform better" to educate yourself on a variety of studies across science, finance, and engineering coming to this conclusion. Don't act like "how do I convince my shithead friend" should be met with reams of dry papers instead of introductory pop-culture pablum to get the 101-grade materials across.
It does not. It embodies the tacit assumption that some people prefer to spend their time building something tangible rather than devoting their lives tilting at the windmills of eradicating racism, sexism, and all the other bigotries endemic to our society.
Tilting at those windmills is important, and might be a cause worthy of devoting your life to it, but it's not everyone's calling.
Lastly, the author of the original article is arguably doing more to advance the cause of women in technology by participating in and engaging with the community, than many of the people writing articles and complaining about the problems.